The article explains the new American Geophysical Union (AGU) data policy and its role in the legacy of scientific data. Emphasizing the importance of data sharing, Dr. Brewer writes, “The readers of your article have equal rights to see both the words and the numbers — they are inseparable.” He explains that all of the numbers used to produce figures and graphs in a publication are important and need to be shared.

The new AGU policy was implemented in part due to the Open Data Policy established in May 2013 that stated all U.S. federal departments and agencies must make government data publicly available. The AGU’s revised policy requires data be located at a publicly accessible repository and the information on how to obtain the data should be in the acknowledgements section of the paper.

In the piece, Dr. Brewer recounts his own personal issues while trying to obtain data from authors when writing a synthesis paper of tracer and model-based estimates of deep ocean oxygen consumption rates. Authors were either reluctant to share data or data were lost. “We need to do better than this. Your data are valuable and need to be shared,” Dr. Brewer emphasized. He also mentioned GoMRI as a good example of archiving and sharing data, saying that “the system works well.” GRIIDC is proud to be a part of the movement towards open data and we thank Dr. Brewer for his leadership, guidance, and continued support.